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Open QCOW2 file

The most common choise: QEMU Copy-On-Write data

How to open QEMU Copy-On-Write data .qcow2 files

qcow2 file icon Have you had trouble opening the qcow2 file on your computer? What are qcow2 files? We explain what they are and recommend software that we know will open them.

What is qcow2 file?

Files with qcow2 extension can be found as one of the default disk image file types from QEMU.

QEMU Copy-On-Write data description

The qcow2 file extension was used from version 0.9 of QEMU for one of its disk image format.

QCOW image format is one of the disk image formats supported by the QEMU processor emulator. It is a representation of a fixed size block device in a file. Benefits it offers over using raw dump representation include:

  • Smaller file size, even on filesystems which don't support holes (i.e. sparse files)
  • Copy-on-write support, where the image only represents changes made to an underlying disk image
  • Snapshot support, where the image can contain multiple snapshots of the images history
  • Optional zlib based compression
  • Optional AES encryption

Suggested software to open qcow2 file

QEMU

A generic machine emulator and virtualizer

Qemu Manager

A management tool for the QEMU emulator

What file extension actually is?

Simply put, file extensions are the characters after the dot in the computer file name, so for example document-name.pdf has file extension „pdf“. This helps Windows to identify which program should be used to open the file.

We can help you to open your file

Our database contains a huge list of different file extensions, usually with detailed description and programs that can be used to open or otherwise work with that particular file type.

Only original software

Every software listed in our database is verified and ve provide link to the developer or to the software own website, which should hopefuly be enough for you to download the most recent version of the program.